hood of the Child of the Sea, and the early attachment betwixt him and Oriana. This princess, however, proves to be of weak intellect and peevish disposition, and is frequently disquieted with ill-founded jealousy. Amadis is an interesting character, and is well distinguished from his brother Galaor; they are equally valiant, but the elder wants the gaiety of the younger; he also remains faithfully attached to one mistress, while Galaor is constantly changing the object of his affections, a fraternal contrast which has been exhibited in most of the Spanish romances relating to the descendants of Amadis.

In the morals displayed, and in the general conduct of the incidents, these continuations are much inferior to the work which they follow, but they become, as they advance, more splendid in their decorations, and more imposing in their machinery. The Urganda of the original Amadis, as Mr Southey remarks, is a true fairy, like Morgaine le Fay, and the Lady of the Lake; but the Urganda, who, in the subsequent books of Amadis, sails about in the Green Serpent, is an enchantress of a more formidable description, and her rivals, Zirfea and Melia, are as tremendous as the Medea of classical mythology.

Of this series of fictions, the first romance is the

EXPLOITS OF ESPLANDIAN, the son of Amadis, the greater part of which is the work of Montalvo, the Spanish translator of Amadis. In order to shelter himself under a popular name, the author called it the fifth book of Amadis; on which it thus became the burden and excrescence. This example was imitated by the followers of Montalvo-the history of Lisuarte formed the seventh and eighth books, and that of Amadis of Greece the ninth and tenth of Amadis de Gaul. The Spanish romancers thus proceeded from generation to generation; and, in order to give some plausibility to the title they bestowed, they kept Amadis himself alive, who thus became the perennial prop of his otherwise insupportable descendants.

None of the progeny degenerated more from the merits of the parent than his immediate successor Esplandian; and Cervantes, who tolerated Amadis de Gaul as the first and best of the kind, hath most justly decreed, "that the excellence of the father should not avail the son, but that he

'Quinto libro d' Amadis de Gaula, o las Sergas dell cavallero Esplandian hijo d' Amadis de Gaula.-Seville, 1542. Saragossa, 1587. Sergas is probably a corruption of the plural of the Greek word Ergon (opus,) corresponding to hechos in Spanish.

should be thrown into the court to give a beginning to the bonfire."

mance.

The part of Amadis de Gaul, however, which contains an account of the infancy of Esplandian, is one of the most beautiful portions of that roOriana having given birth to a son, the fruit of her stolen interviews with Amadis, delivered the child to her confidants, that he might be conveyed to a remote part of the country for the sake of concealment. Those to whom the infant was entrusted, in order to travel more privately, struck into a forest. A lioness, which resided in this quarter, made free to carry off the child as provender for her whelps. Unfortunately for them she had a respectable hermit for a neighbour, who met and rebuked her before she reached the den with her prey. She was quite disconcerted at being thus unexpectedly caught, and at length, by her good neighbour's seasonable remonstrances, was brought to a better way of thinking, and was induced to undertake the office of nurse to the child, who was now conveyed to the hermitage. There Esplandian was accordingly suckled with much blandishment by the reformed lioness, and when she went to prowl, her place was supplied by an ewe and a she-goat. Other heroes of chivalry, it may be recollected, were

fostered in a similar manner; fictions, no doubt, suggested by the classical fable of Romulus and Remus.

As Esplandian grew up, the lioness acted as a dry nurse; she guarded him when he walked out from the hermitage, and afterwards accompanied him in the chase.

One day King Lisuarte, in the course of his field sports, entered the forest where Esplandian was bred up by the hermit and the motherly lioness, and perceived the boy leading in a leash this animal, which he loosed, when a stag was started, and hallooed her to the prey. When the game was overtaken, the lioness and two spaniels had their shares of the spoil. The king was surprised at beholding this singular group, and Esplandian being carried to the verge of the forest, where the queen had pitched her pavilion, was recognised by Oriana as her son, by means of certain characters on his breast. In the subsequent romances, the descendants of Esplandian are usually discovered by some inscription of this nature, or other personal mark, as a cross or flaming sword, an awkward alteration on the Greek romances, where children are identified by certain articles of apparel or decoration, which they wore at the time of their loss or exposure.

Esplandian was brought up at the court of King Lisuarte, and was in due time admitted into the order of knighthood. The romance, which is appropriated to his exploits, commences immediately after this inauguration. During a sleep, into which he fell soon after the ceremony, he was carried, with his squire, by means of Urganda the Unknown, to that incomprehensible machine the Ship of the great Serpent, wherein he was conveyed to the foot of a castle, the enchantments of which he was destined to terminate.

Thence, under the name of the Black Knight, (an appellation bestowed from the colour of his armour,) he sailed to the Forbidden Mountain, a strong-hold on the confines of Turkey and Greece, and which, in this romance, is the chief theatre of exploits. Esplandian took possession of it in behalf of the Greek emperor, having slain its former gigantic and heathenish proprietors. He did not, however, long occupy this fortress in quiet, as it was soon besieged by Armato, the soldan of the Turks, with a great army. But Esplandian had now additional motives to exert himself in behalf of the Greek emperor. Leonorina, the emperor's daughter, and our knight, though they had never met, had become mutually enamoured, and maintain, during the romance, an interchange of ama